>> c-span's "washington journal live every day with news and policy issues. coming up tuesday morning, al green discusses his continued efforts to impeach president trump. and florida republican congressman ted yoho joins us to alk about u.s.-north korea summit and todd harrison what is n the pentagon budget request. watch it 7:00 eastern. join the discussion. >> each week in this segment of the "washington journal" country.

guest: since 1993, we have had the family and medical leave act .hat gathers these people yourself, the government tells you and the employer has to guarantee you 12 weeks of unprotected pay. host: was there a discussion at the time to make it paid leave? guest: there was definitely a lot of pressure to make it paid. there is this concern that if you just open it up to unpaid leave, who is going to have access? timenk the concern at that was how our business is going to react to a policy that suddenly

mandates that every business has to offer 12 weeks of paid leave to their employee? it is a more generous definition of who can qualify and all of the needs that you can have. . think there was this concern mothers are more likely to take up at leave, will they face more discrimination in the workplace? at that time, we left it unpaid. -- they left it unpaid. host: what time did it gain momentum? guest: over the past couple of decades, the states have been experimenting with paid leave policies. statesnia came up with a patently program in 2003-2004. since then, new jersey and rely don't -- rhode island have implement it policies. policies in

washington state and massachusetts. it is moving to the federal. host: i want to focus on new jersey. they passed an expansion of their paid family leave policy into law and it was signed last month. here is what that expansion would do for those who work in new jersey. it would expand paid time off from six weeks to 12 weeks. towould increase the pay $806 a week. 860 dollars a week. in new jersey, it can be used byer a birth and is funded annual payroll productions and will go into effect -- does not go into effect until july of 2020. focus on the payment side, when we talk about paid family leave, what are the different options and plans to paper expansions like that? guest: the way these programs are working is that there is an employer.e and

we had an insurance policy that allows people to take time off for medical leave. on parentalg benefits and those tend to be funded to employee payroll contributions. this is an earned benefit and employers are facing a cost of letting the employee take that leap. if the employee pays into the tax systems like we do for other insurance programs, this is something that they can build up to. they say for it and to some extent, they get the benefits from it. that is how it is working out at the state level. host: if you want to join this conversation, phone lines are split up by region. if your in the east, it is (202) 748-8000. if you're in the mountain or pacific time zones, it is (202) 748-8001.

aparnaof mathur -- mathur is our guest. you came up with their own proposal that you think is a copper mise plan. can you walk through what that proposal would be -- compromised plan, what would that proposal be? guest: we would focus on not just the benefits of paid leave policy but what is the cost of having a patently policy? why are we not moving forward on it? we came up with a compromise plan. it was gender-neutral. there was a benefit of $600 per week. the reason we have focused in on that was that we wanted the benefits to be relatively well documented toward the lowest wage workers. the ones who, across the

country, have literally no access to paid leave. they are the ones who are unlikely to get the unpaid minimum leave because it is unpaid -- take the unpaid minimum leave because it is unpaid. our focus was on how do we expand access to the lowest wage workers and one way to do that was to make the benefits generous for the lowest wage workers. that is why we decided on that. host: that is your proposal part several other proposals that will go through during the segment. which one in your mind has the most momentum? guest: it is hard to say which one has the most bipartisan momentum. on the democrats, there is the family act. it provides 12 weeks of paid job protected leave. side, we havecan a new proposal that says people should be allowed to have social

security benefits and that is how they should pay for their paid leave. on what side you're talking to. there is a coming together. is the agency or the fund that -- how doo paid leave we improve access to the lowest wage workers? i think there is always the possibility of compromise. we tried to highlight that each side has its own plan but there is the potential to come together if you're willing to give up some details of each plan decide on a compromise. host: it (202) 748-8000 if you're in the eastern time zone. if it is (202) 748-8001

you're in the pacific time zone. marco rubio was the driving force on the proposal that would allow people to use their future social security for paid leave. how much of that is being picked up by the white house and by other republicans in congress? guest: we see support for that proposal. i believe he ivanka trump has been in touch the senator. think what the white house is being careful about is not backing one specific proposal. i think that is smart because what they recognize is that what we need is a compromise. even for republicans, it is great to see this competition of ideas unpaid leave. you will have to say, maybe this particular design does not work. and i am willing to come forward and decide on something that is more universally acceptable. senator rubio's proposal is one of them. withor young is coming up

a proposal which i am hoping to see bills come out in the next couple of months. it is interesting to me that republicans are inking about these policies and thinking about new creed of ways to do this. -- to have this recognition new creative ways to do this. and to have this recognition. that is the most exciting aspect of what is going on. host: somebody on twitter rights in that it is being abused by some. does anyone think that it is mandatory? the abuse will drop. guest: we hear cases of employers saying people are misusing it because you are guaranteed job protection and we hear cases where people are saying they are calling up on a friday and saying i have backache and i cannot come into work. piecean happen with any

of legislation. i think the question is what do we put around paid leave legislation that mix it harder to do that? there is definitely this concern that more people will take it up for longer. that just means that you actually have a medical need. which, in many cases, it is easy to verify. it is a little harder to verify if you're doing family care leave. even there, i would like to point out that people are naturally using up the pieces of the fmla, which are harder to verify. the family care piece is the least used. it has the lowest rate. it is a mystery. you have access to paid or unpaid leave to take care of family members. the most used pieces are parental leave and medical leave. there is concern about abuse but

i would not want to blow it up and say this is the reason we should not move forward. way tos a structure -- structure the policy that would get us around that. host: if you have a question, it is (202) 748-8000 in the eastern times i. -- time zone. ares (202) 748-8001 if you in the mountain time zone. alyssa's question is about the cost and whether the government should be doing this in the first place. use common sense. can you talk about that concern that is out there, whether this is the proper role for the government to get into? guest: there is concern about what the costs are going to be and our people across the country expected to pay for this and should government get into it? i think that what we have realized since the fmla was , employers are going to

step in and make paid leave policies and everybody will have access prayed we should not worry about it. that has not happened. if you look across the country, about 15-16% of people have access to family care leave. a slightly larger number have access to medical leave policies. havepeople are trying to sick days. the reason i think you need government intervention is that there really are people out there who do not have the ability to save up and need help. if you can do that through an insurance program, that is the least costly for workers. a cost developed calculator for paid leave so that we can assess the costs for employee pay checks -- paychecks. cheap.l leave is very it costs less than $100 a year

for employees. if you made a generous program, the cost triples. we have to be careful of the cost registrations. we have to recognize that there are people out there that need help. if you can do that in the most cost-effective way possible, which is a social insurance program that the government scan can manage, which we do for all other types of insurance policies, like medicare and medicaid and so on. then, i think that that is one thing that we need to get the economy moving. here, there are good economic reasons to invest in these policies. who have access to these policies can take time off. we see good health for families and children's. -- children. i would look at the benefits side and say we need that trade-off. host: we would like to hear your stories and your comments about paid family leave policies. we will start with virginia in

waldorf, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a simple question. if there -- they are considering putting down central programs such as medicare and medicaid, how in the world is our government going to support a family medical leave act? not only that, how will they apply to the federal employees who are already getting paid? it is the retail side of the economy that is hurting. how are we going to do that? guest: there is this concern about we have these social insurance programs that are running out of funds. and we will not be able to pay people what we owe them. i do think that that is a genuine concern. havewith the reports we seen that focus on social insurance, the idea is that at some point, we have to figure out how do we fund these investment programs and how do we make sure that they are guaranteeing the benefits that we are projecting as a result of policies.

of supportingnk those policies is by doing it through her taxes. if you want to find another program, you should do it through taxes. that is one way around it. there is also the conversation about how do we handle medicare and social security and the trust funds running out. that is a question that is being much discussed and is definitely there. i think adding on a small based parental leave program is not going to bring the program any further than it already is. attentionot a lot of in the d.c. area, where there , a groupal employees of house democrats proposing a federal employee paid leave policy, just impacting federal employees. ranting 12 weeks of paid leave that could be used after the birth or care of a newborn. it allows paid time to place a

tiled up for adoption -- child up for adoption. is this likely to go anywhere? this one focused specifically on federal employees? guest: i think the democrats are trying to start small and say that we do not have the family act which would make paid leave available to every person across the country. but we can start with federal employees. and start to build up that base of support. again, it depends a lot on what republicans and democrats are able to reach. i think that there is a potential for this to go somewhere. states will not be able to do this for all employees across the state. but are able to do it for the state employment -- government employees. i think it is part of this

broader conversation about how much are we willing to compromise? and how much do we do this for federal employees, is this opening the gateway for everybody across the country? as long as they are willing to copper mice on the larger piece, this will definitely work out. host: phone lines again, (202) 748-8000 in the eastern or central time zones. (202) 748-8001 in the mountain or pacific time zones. nelson in hollywood, florida, your next. caller: more government , unfunded mandates, and additional burden on the private sector, which employees -- employees the vast majority of people in this country. i can see this being abused, and set of -- instead of someone taking paid leave to have a baby, they may take paid leave to have an abortion. i can see all kinds of problems

coming up in the courts and cases of this great abuse that will take place if and when this nonsense should ever become law. thank you. guest: i think the concern is should the government legislate these policies? there are companies that are offering paid leave policies. some of them are very generous. they are offering paid leave. that is not -- there does not seem that there is this concern that employees will abuse this policy. employers are concerned about come -- providing competitive benefits. when it comes to the lower wage workers, these policies are the least likely to be available to them. whether you're talking about the fmla or paid leave policies at

the state or employer level. thane who make less $20,000 a year have little access. fewer than 5% of people have access to these policies. governmentyou need to step in. i also understand that we don't want the government to crowd out private sector policies. which is why when we had discussions within the working group, we did not want to have an openly generous federal policy that would be costly at the same time, it would tell employers that you do not need to be doing this because the government is going to be offering these policies on its own. we wanted a basic, uniform policy across the country that every employee, irrespective of rich or state would have access to. at the same time, it would allow employers to provide more generous policies. that we of crowd out

are seeing at the state and employer levels. host: barber is next in baltimore, maryland. good morning. [indiscernible] to me, it is always let's find a way to plug away. --er areas why isn't it that social security is not always included in this type of scheme? guest: that is a good concern. why do we always stop and do social security to try to fund these programs. there are genuine concerns about are we hitting the lowest wage workers on their retirement

security? are they the ones that are going to suffer the most? agency, the recent social security makes the most sense is that it collects the exact right information you need to compute things like paid leave benefits. you need information about people's work history. there payment history. payment history per how long they have been with an employment -- employer. to some extent, the social security, disability insurance program collects that kind of information. natural agency to housing it. there are concerned about why not pick up a new program that would help fund paid leave for families, instead of dipping into social security ponds that are expected to run out. host: bobby with a question from 20. how does required leave, paid or

not work in states where employers can fire employees for any or no reason? guest: that is the good thing with having a program that comes through the states. it is not attached to an employer. -- whether it is the you, they cannot fire during the leave. the actual payments are coming to you from the state. irrespective of whether that employer decides to pay you or decides to fire you, to something, you have felt -- built up that eligibility over the course of your work history. whether you qualify for the paid leave or extra payments, you will be still able to get them and get the paid leave. you do not fire the employee during the period of the leave but later, we don't see that in the data.

we are studying the california program and how it is working out. our business is getting hurt because of these policies? there does not -- a lot of employers are fine with the policies, expanding off of them and building off of them and they do not think there is a huge administrative cost or a cost to the business. these are all good things to think about. they have not actually played out in practice. host: linda in arizona is next. good morning. caller: good morning. i used to own my own business, a small business. to thei listen ifversation, i look at it as i were still in business. if i had to give someone eight weeks off, i think it would have killed my business.

on trainingnd money for certain jobs. who does those jobs when someone is off on leave? it kind of boggles my mind. i would like to know if anyone has approached it from that angle? training an employee who does their job when they are gone, it is huge. guest: that is a great question and a concern we hear all of the time for small businesses. somebody needs to take eight weeks off, how do you handle the replacement? how do you handle somebody who comes in and does that job? which is why the fmla doesn't apply to businesses with 50 -- fewer than 50 employees. we were very hesitant to expand to the smallest businesses. we did say that we should open it up to small businesses so they have the option to opt into

it. but, naturally, those businesses have to follow along with the policies. what is interesting is that a lot of small businesses say that we will let our employee take leave if they have a baby. you will not enforce -- we will not enforce that -- force the employee to stay at work. the cost is on the employee. they get the benefits through the state or federal government, instead of the small business employer having to pay the employee while on leave. i think that is something that a lot of small businesses seem to be on board with. that is the idea when we talked to these businesses. we have to structure it so that the cost of minimum and small businesses, it is not a mandate on them. host: cynthia is next from illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call.

i am a retired person. i had anng the 1980's, work on some of the initiatives -- parental leave initiatives at that time. it was anticipated that they would eventually be paid leave. and they would apply for a whole variety of family related concerns. i shared the view that it is an intrusion of private industry. it is an intrusion on the privacy of the home. bond between the employer and the employee that goes beyond the concerns of the workplace itself. if there could be

some kind of monetary value applied to a leave. because, let's say for example, a father would rather not take the leave but have some kind of -- for passing it up. that might be of value to the family to begin with. these policies are not designed to force you to take the lead. this is a choice that people have heard you are offered the paid leave. the hope is that both the father and mother will be able to take it up and this eases the transition during that period that you're at least getting some pay when you have to take that time off. at the same time, it is not a mandate that you have to take that time off. i think it offers more choices

to families who are considering that. folks have no access to paid leave and the mother or father has to take the time off because a medical needs but has no access to pay during that period. that can be a hugely problematic issue for the economic security of families. this is a proposal that offers more choice rather than less. host: david has been waiting in wisconsin. good morning. caller: good morning. i don't agree with family leave period. family leave would be like the government paying you back with your own taxes. thank you. of paid leave policies as something that is helpful for the most vulnerable worker. for the most low-wage worker who are struggling -- workers who are struggling with these issues. they have medical leave and have to take time off to look for

their families and children. we arest gives them -- not talking about even 100% wages. we are talking about 70% wager paceman test placement. wager placement. it keeps you engaged with the workforce. it as a view problematic policy that would hurt other businesses or families. it is something that would help the most vulnerable workers. host: that is aparna >> tonight on "the communicators," former f.c.c. chair tom wheeler talks about his new book, "from gutenberg to google." >> it's never the primary network that is transformative.

but it's the secondary effects of that network. it's how, for instance, the printing press not only enabled luther but enabled the renaissance to come out of northern italy. it's how the first high speed network, the railroad, created industrial -- the industrial revolution. and how the first electronic network, the the telegraph, allowed for the creation of a national news media and a national financial system. >> watch "the communicators" tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> a look at our primetime schedule on the c-span networks. beginning at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span or after the house ad journs, bernie sanders holds a campaign rally. he'll be reporters in new

hampshire. t 8:30 eastern on c-span2, the senate judiciary committee holds a hearg on human smuggling at the u.s.-mexico border. at 8:00 p.m. on c-span 3rks a look at current u.s. infrastructure needs. >> c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up tuesday morning, texas democratic congressman al green discusses his continued efforts to impeach president trump. and then florida republican congressman ted yow ho joins us to talk about u.s.-north korea relations after the recent summit. and the center for strategic and international studies todd harrison on what's in president trump's $750 billion pentagon budget request. watch "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning. join the discussion. >> the house is in recess until

6:30, any moment now members will return for a couple of votes. this amp they debated four financial services and housing bills, they'll vote on two of them. later this week we expect debate on a sense of congress resolution that special counsel mueller's report should be made available to the public and to congress. of course we'll have all the house action here on c-span and the senate always covered on c-span2. we expect two votes on the floor tonight, then a moment of silence. live now to the floor of the house. gentleman from california seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i send to the desk a privileged report from the committee on rules for filing under the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title. the clerk: report to accompany house resolution 208. resolution providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution, house concurrent resolution 24, expressing the sense of congress that the report of special counsel mueller should be made available to the public and to congress and providing for

proceedings during the period from march 15, 2019, to through march 22 2019 -- through march 22, 2019. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the house calendar and ordered printed. proceedings will resume on questions previously postponed. votes will be taken in the following order. motions to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 1122 and h.r. 758, both by the yeas and nays. the first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. pursuant to clause 9 of rule 20, remaining electronic votes will be conducted as five-minute votes. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion of the gentleman from california, mr. -- the gentlewoman from california, ms. waters, to suspend the rules, pass h.r. 1122, on which the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will report the

title. the clerk: h.r. 1122, a bill to authorize the secretary of housing and urban development to carry out a housing choice voucher mobility demonstration, to encourage families receiving such voucher assistance to move to lower poverty areas and expand access to opportunity areas. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill. members will record their votes by electronic device. his is a 15-minute vote. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]